Brief Intro

The view from London as the biggest sporting event in the history of Great Britain finally lands. #London2012

Sunday 29 July 2012

Silly Merchandise Special

One of the more amusing, or to those of a cynical disposition, infuriating, aspects of London 2012 is the vast amount of merchandise which springs up left, right and centre - particularly in the tourism-fuelled souvenir shops that dominate the centre of the capital.

Today I set out in search of silly merchandise, both official and unofficial, and here are my findings: some of the best pointless and unnecessary items your good money can buy.


This rather tacky looking and excruciatingly inaccurate replica of the Olympic torch is available in central London, if that's your thing.



While this teabag company are trying to capitalise on the popularity of sprinting to sell tea but I can't for the life of me decipher what the link between the two is!



Think your car needs to get into the Olympic spirit? Well Tesco are stocking these super-fashionable Union Jack wing mirror covers. Trendy.


These ultra-useful rubber ducks have somehow managed to gain official merchandise status. The purple ones are tennis-specific, but unfortunately all the other sports haven't been granted rubber-duck-worthy status!




Similarly revelling in their official mascot status, Mandeville and Wenlock, these two weird non-existent creatures are available in soft toy form. As you can see from the second picture, you can buy this extra cute (?!) giant cuddly toy, which is almost as big as the man at the bottom of the picture.




Mandeville and Wenlock are more than just cuddly toys though! They even star on these ultra-effective magnetic bookmarks and super-stylish photoclips. Who needs photo frames eh? 


Bored of your egg cups? These Olympic special egg cups will give you all the energy of Sir Chris Hoy and Jessica Ennis combined every time you use them for your egg and soldiers in the morning. Possibly.



Concorde stopped flying nine years ago, but those savvy chaps at the Olympic merchandise headquarters decided to make an Olympic special replica of the non-existent Olympic special concorde. Genius.


These are official Panasonic Olympic headphones and earphones. Sounds like they could be quite cool, but beyond the packaging they don't appear to have anything whatsoever to do with the Olympics at all. Not even a visible logo in sight.


Outside the realm of official products, these t-shirts scream unofficial about as loudly as the music which blared out during the Opening Ceremony. Last time I checked I'm pretty sure the tournament wasn't called England '12.



Continuing in the world of unofficialdom, this special condom, featuring the Olympic flame, is almost guaranteed to ensure you get lucky. Surely worth every penny!


And it looks like the hilarious merchandise will continue beyond the end of the tournament with this Olympic guinea pig calendar being produced for 2013. So what are you waiting for? Go out and buy some of this stuff! 



The Search for Excellence will return tomorrow, probably with something a bit more serious. Don't forget to follow James on Twitter @TSFE2012

All photographs by James Phillips


No comments:

Post a Comment